Honeybees may have personality

Thrill-seeking isn't limited to humans, or even to vertebrates. Honeybees also …

Bees have different “personalities”, with some showing a stronger willingness or desire to seek adventure than others, according to a study by entomologists at the University of Illinois.

The researchers found that thrill-seeking is not limited to humans and other vertebrates. The brains of honeybees that were more likely than others to seek adventure exhibited distinct patterns of gene activity in molecular pathways known to be associated with thrill-seeking in humans.

The findings present a new perspective on honeybee communities, which were thought to be highly regimented and comprised of a colony of interchangeable workers taking on a few specific roles to serve their queen.

It now seems as though individual honeybees differ in their desire to perform particular tasks and these differences could be down to variability in bees’ personalities. This supports a 2011 study at Newcastle University which found that honeybees exhibit pessimism, suggesting that the insects might have feelings.

Gene Robinson, entomology professor and director of the Institute for Genomic Biology, said: “In humans, differences in novelty-seeking are a component of personality. Could insects also have personalities?”

Robinson and his team studied two behaviors that looked like novelty seeking: scouting for new nest sites and scouting for food. When a colony outgrows its living quarters, the swarm must hunt for a new home. Around five percent of the swarm goes hunting for new lodgings. These “nest scouts” are around 3.4 times more likely than their peers to also become food scouts, researchers discovered.

“There is a gold standard for personality research and that is if you show the same tendency in different contexts, then that can be called a personality trait,” Robinson said.

In order to understand the molecular basis for these differences, Robinson and his colleagues used whole-genome microarray analysis to look for differences in the activity of thousands of genes in the brains the thrill-seeking and non thrill-seeking bees. They found thousands of differences in gene activity.

In humans and animals, thrill-seeking behavior is thought to be linked to how the brain’s reward system responds. In bees, researchers found lots of differently expressed genes that were connected to proteins and hormones that imply novelty-seeking in vertebrates.

In order to test whether the changes in brain signalling caused the novelty-seeking, researchers gave bees extra glutamate and octapamine which increased scouting in bees that had not scouted before. Blocking dopamine signalling decreased scouting behavior. “Our results say that novelty-seeking in humans and other vertebrates has parallels in an insect. One can see the same sort of consistent behavioral differences and molecular underpinnings,” said Robinson.

Robinson believes that insects, humans and other animals have made use of the same genetic “toolkit” in the evolution of behavior, which each species has adapted. “It looks like the same molecular pathways have been engaged repeatedly in evolution to give rise to individual differences in novelty-seeking,” he concluded.

Anecdotally, when I worked with lobsters it certainly seemed like they had personality.

In terms of evolution, you should expect personality to exist. Personality, as defined here, basically just means variation between individuals in terms of their behavior. If there was no personality, there would be no range of traits for selection to work on. And in population biology, it's clear that multiple traits can be expressed in a population as long as each trait has an advantage in some circumstances.

Honeybees are a bit different, because there is a temptation to think of them as products made by the queen, rather than as individuals who just happen to not produce offspring. I don't think the data supports this view, though.

I don't know about bees. Many animals that have aggressive interactions for dominance (such as lobsters) will show a winner/loser effect. An animal that comes out a winner, is more likely to win the next encounter. An animal that comes out a loser, is more likely to lose the next encounter. This is true even if the two animals did not see the other animal's previous encounter, and can reverse the expected outcome. E.g. in lobsters, the bigger animal (even by a small margin) has a very big advantage. But if you pair them up so the bigger animal just lost, and the smaller animal just won, and often the smaller animal will win the second encounter.

I think you could reasonably think of that as a mood. The loser is depressed and has a negative opinion of itself (underestimates its own abilities) and the winner is excited and aggressive (maybe even overconfident).

In some animals the winner/loser effect is fairly persistent, even after long periods without any interactions from other individuals. It might not be fair to call it depression and more like a kind of revised assessment of whether fighting for dominance is worthwhile, sort of changing the worldview of the animal. "I got into a fight. I lost. Fighting is dangerous." Next time they're confronted with a dominance conflict, what they learned from the previous one kicks in.

In some animals the winner/loser effect is fairly persistent, even after long periods without any interactions from other individuals. It might not be fair to call it depression and more like a kind of revised assessment of whether fighting for dominance is worthwhile, sort of changing the worldview of the animal. "I got into a fight. I lost. Fighting is dangerous." Next time they're confronted with a dominance conflict, what they learned from the previous one kicks in.

The real test would be to see if it changes other behaviors. E.g. does a loser also show less exploratory behavior? Does it take fewer chances? These are behavioral changes that would also be associated with depression. I don't know the answer to this. My guess is that these also change, but it's a guess.

why should I care? Is it solving a problem that matters - world hunger?

FYI, going back to elementary school here, bees pollinate food crops. This research suggests that bees exposed to dopamine blocking chemicals will be less effective. And in comparison to slavery, your bigger concern is your 'smartphone'?!?! Seeming rude should be the least of your worries.

In terms of evolution, you should expect personality to exist. Personality, as defined here, basically just means variation between individuals in terms of their behavior. If there was no personality, there would be no range of traits for selection to work on. And in population biology, it's clear that multiple traits can be expressed in a population as long as each trait has an advantage in some circumstances.

I think there is another evolutionary drive for "personality," especially in social animals. I think every society needs different types of "citizens." The more aggressive personality type is useful when conflict arises with other groups, but the more relaxed, conciliatory personality is required to resolve internal conflict - or perhaps with conflict with a much more powerful group.

Point the second: It matters because knowledge is important in it own right.

The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is a pointless endeavor, it's the ultimate intellectual gratification and demonstrates an extreme domination of the brain in the body, similar to how somebody who eats for the sake of eating demonstrates domination of the gut. Both show an extremely weak will to resist basic impulses and possibly an addictive nature. So how to get that back in balance? Pursue knowledge with an aim in mind and learn to put the brain back into its rightful place of balance in the body.

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Point the third: It is important because knowing about this behavior could effect how we go about dealing with other animals in terms of farming and management.

It is sad that for many, things have to be proven that are obvious to the rest of us: namely that animals and insects feel pleasure and pain, like we do and therefore we should not treat them as being inanimate resources. Ever more sad is that even though this is known, they will still be treated as mere resources in the school of thought that we call economics, which reduces everything to mere currency. So how to get people behaving responsibly towards other forms of life? Recognise that reductionism (key stone in the arch of economics) is only one way to understand something that in reality is extremely complex and that by virtue of it being reduced, cannot really tell us the whole truth, it's an illusion of it.

Point the second: It matters because knowledge is important in it own right.

The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is a pointless endeavor, it's the ultimate intellectual gratification and demonstrates an extreme domination of the brain in the body, similar to how somebody who eats for the sake of eating demonstrates domination of the gut. Both show an extremely weak will to resist basic impulses and possibly an addictive nature. So how to get that back in balance? Pursue knowledge with an aim in mind and learn to put the brain back into its rightful place of balance in the body.

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Point the third: It is important because knowing about this behavior could effect how we go about dealing with other animals in terms of farming and management.

It is sad that for many, things have to be proven that are obvious to the rest of us: namely that animals and insects feel pleasure and pain, like we do and therefore we should not treat them as being inanimate resources. Ever more sad is that even though this is known, they will still be treated as mere resources in the school of thought that we call economics, which reduces everything to mere currency. So how to get people behaving responsibly towards other forms of life? Recognise that reductionism (key stone in the arch of economics) is only one way to understand something that in reality is extremely complex and that by virtue of it being reduced, cannot really tell us the whole truth, it's an illusion of it.

Heck even bacteria respond to adverse environmental variables - and communicate (chemically) with each other to try to overcome adversity and pain ( which of course would be seen as a demonic manifestation by Rick Santorum).

Point the second: It matters because knowledge is important in it own right.

The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is a pointless endeavor, it's the ultimate intellectual gratification and demonstrates an extreme domination of the brain in the body, similar to how somebody who eats for the sake of eating demonstrates domination of the gut. Both show an extremely weak will to resist basic impulses and possibly an addictive nature. So how to get that back in balance? Pursue knowledge with an aim in mind and learn to put the brain back into its rightful place of balance in the body.

I would argue the opposite. Focus only on immediate goals shows a primitive and instinctive drive to satisfy ones base needs, not vision or inspiration. Such a focus puts food on the table (in the short term), but provides nothing for the spirit. Basic understanding of the world, like art, can do more.

But that philosophical (and thus debatable) point aside, basic research is not done because it will provide a known, predictable outcome. It is pursued because it opens up unknown and unpredictable outcomes. It could be that the outcome will be something closely related to the topic. The economic value of honeybees is tremendous. Anything applicable to the care, maintenance, and protection of honeybees is of clear and immediate value. But it could be that it illuminates less unpredictable topics. For example, other social insects such as ants or termites also have significant economic meaning. Beyond that, principles of animal behavior can be relevant to any animal system. Or the details may not have their full impact until they are linked to genetic systems yet to be revealed, which could be relevant to any organisms sharing genes (possibly even ourselves).

The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is a pointless endeavor, it's the ultimate intellectual gratification and demonstrates an extreme domination of the brain in the body, similar to how somebody who eats for the sake of eating demonstrates domination of the gut. Both show an extremely weak will to resist basic impulses and possibly an addictive nature. So how to get that back in balance? Pursue knowledge with an aim in mind and learn to put the brain back into its rightful place of balance in the body.

Deep. I hope you're enjoying freshman year! Anyway, this is about learning how the universe works. Bees have a place in it, and I'm glad to understand them a little better.

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It is sad that for many, things have to be proven that are obvious to the rest of us: namely that animals and insects feel pleasure and pain, like we do and therefore we should not treat them as being inanimate resources. Ever more sad is that even though this is known, they will still be treated as mere resources in the school of thought that we call economics, which reduces everything to mere currency. So how to get people behaving responsibly towards other forms of life? Recognise that reductionism (key stone in the arch of economics) is only one way to understand something that in reality is extremely complex and that by virtue of it being reduced, cannot really tell us the whole truth, it's an illusion of it.

As best I can tell, from digging through all the verbal puffery surrounding your actual points, you are saying that you don't like economics, because it puts dollar values on everything, and you don't like reductive scientific research because it is not sufficiently informative.

Well, to your first problem - economics and resource economics are attempts to model human behavior in terms of their willingness to pay for goods. Given that even the world's most passionate conservationist has a limit to what they can pay to save the polar bears, an understanding of resources, economics, and how policy influences them is going to do you far more favors in enacting your ideological goals than rejecting it will.

As to the second, yawn - if reductionism were not an effective strategy to tackle questions of how pieces of the universe operate (whether those pieces are cosmic rays or the ecology of a river basin in Asia Minor), scientists and mathematicians would have given it up as a waste of time long ago. In fact, we are reductionists precisely because the natural world is so flippin' complex. We break it up into little pieces that we can ask questions of and get answers from, because that's the only way to actually progress. We could try doing things you way, and get nowhere - or we can use reductionist methods and, piece by piece, actually put the story together. It's slow and tedious and piecemeal, but it does work. And so that's what we're stuck with - in science and economics alike, we build a model out of tiny pieces. It's like intellectual LEGOs - the final structure may only be an approximation of the real thing, but if we were to listen to you we would just have a big pile of bricks, and that's a lot further from the truth.